


Eggshells

by BeStillMySlashyHeart



Series: AK ficlets [11]
Category: Animal Kingdom (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-10 11:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19502593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeStillMySlashyHeart/pseuds/BeStillMySlashyHeart
Summary: Deran's been tip toeing around Adrian and the shitstorm he's found himself in. Adrian isn't having it.





	Eggshells

“Deran!” Adrian’s voice was loud in the empty bar but Deran didn’t respond. Instead, he tightened his grip on the edge of his desk and stared at the gun he’d placed upon it.

“Deran!” Adrian called again, his voice closer this time. “What’s wrong? Your text seemed urgent.”

Deran closed his eyes and steeled himself before straightening and turning to face his boyfriend. Adrian paused halfway across the room, clearly reading something in his body language that made him stop.

“Deran?” He didn’t sound worried, Deran thought idly, just concerned. It struck him as oddly humorous but he wasn’t in a laughing mood.

“Jack and his crew got picked up by the DEA this morning. There’s talk of a snitch.” Deran kept his voice low as he stared at Adrian. If he was hoping for a reaction, he wasn’t disappointed. Adrian’s whole body stiffened and he squared his shoulders.

Adrian opened his mouth but Deran cut him off. “Goddammit, man. Why the fuck would you work with the feds?” He kept his voice low, careful not to yell.

“To avoid spending the next 25 years in jail,” Adrian admitted plainly. “You were right, Jack was stupid and he got me caught. It was one of my first couple of runs and the DEA pulled me aside at the airport. Offered me a deal, I get them Jack and his suppliers and they give me immunity.”

Deran shook his head and grabbed at his hair. “Do you understand what you’ve done?”

Adrian was silent for long enough that Deran thought he might need to repeat the question. “What are you worried about, Deran?”

Deran’s jaw ticked as he stared at him, afraid to ask the question he needed an answer to. Adrian read something in his face because he nodded and took a step closer. 

“Ask me,” he ordered. 

Deran didn’t say anything.

Adrian scoffed and shook his head. “Just fucking ask me, Deran.”

He inhaled sharply through his nose, unable to force the words out. For weeks, Smurf has had them worried about a rat and Deran had refused to even consider the possibility of Adrian. He’d gotten in Pope’s face about it when his brother suggested looking into him. Which Adrian knew. 

“Why won’t you just ask me, Deran?” Adrian asked him when he stayed silent. His voice was softer but incredulous. “When did you get so timid?”

“When you left.” It was out before Deran could stop it. Adrian froze in front of him but Deran kept going. He’d said it so he might as well say all of it. “I walk on eggshells around you, man. I’m terrified I’m going to say the wrong thing or make a wrong move and you’re just going to leave again. I can’t-” He sniffed and shook his head. “I can’t lose you again.”

Adrian eyed him, his eyes wide. “That’s why we don’t fight. Not about anything, even the stupid stuff. You just let me win every argument. I thought it was just you trying to feel out this whole dating thing but-” He shook his head. “Deran, you can’t keep doing that. I’m not going to leave over an argument or a fight. We butt heads, it happens. It’s _going_ to happen. We won’t agree on everything all of the time and you can’t keep letting me have my way just because you think if I don’t I’m going to leave. I’m not. If a stupid argument was enough to make me leave, I never would have come back.”

“And what about a not stupid argument?” Deran couldn’t help but ask.

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that my boyfriend snitched on one of the biggest drug cartels in Southern California and just put a huge target on my back and my family?” Deran forced out. “Why didn’t you just talk to me, man? Was that so hard?”

“Yes,” Adrian told him easily. “Because we don’t talk. We’ve spent months in this relationship and we never talk about the important things. How was I supposed to bring up the fact that I did something stupid to try and salvage some pride and I got caught? That I had to turn into a federal informant to stay out of prison? When exactly was that going to come up, Deran? When you were asking me to be your fucking alibi?”

Deran closed his eyes. There were a lot of things in there that they needed to talk about but Adrian had brought them back to the real problem. 

Adrian waited.

And waited.

Finally- “Are you the one talking to the state police about my family?” Deran asked, keeping his eyes closed. Adrian could be a terrible liar but he had a worse poker face. Everything was written in every line of his body, right there for anyone to see if they knew how to read it, and Deran didn’t want to see it. Not yet.

“What if I did?” Adrian asked after a pause. Unbidden, Deran’s hand twitched towards the gun as his eyes snapped open.

Adrian’s gaze was fixed on Deran’s hand, his body tense, and Deran knew, he just _knew_ , if he so much as touched the weapon right now, Adrian was done. It wouldn’t matter if he was the snitch or not or any of their other issues. If Deran pulled his gun in the middle of an argument Adrian would be gone for good. He forced his hand to relax and fall back at his side but it wasn’t until he pushed himself away from the desk and took a step to the side that Adrian started to relax himself.

“Did you?” Deran asked again, his voice barely a whisper.

“Detective Pearce approached me when the DEA pulled my deal. Said they could renegotiate the terms of my immunity if I gave him information on you.”

Deran knew what a broken heart felt like, he’d been through that before. This was different. This was the realization that everything he’d worked for, everything he’d built for himself, was crumbling to pieces and all because of the person he trusted most.

His head was pounding and it was getting hard to breathe. His vision was getting watery but he couldn’t look away.

“I told him you’re just a guy who owns a bar,” Adrian’s voice somehow broke through. “That you hate your mother and haven’t spoken to her in months.”

His breaths started coming in easier, his mouth falling open in surprise as Adrian kept talking.

“I told him that whatever Smurf or your brothers may be up to, you have no part in it. I wouldn’t be with you otherwise.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” was all Deran could say.

Adrian shrugged. “Most of the time. But we both know I can lie just fine when I really need to. When it’s important.”

It was true. Adrian was godawful at lying 99% of the time but he’d been the one to get them off the hook when they crashed one of Smurf’s cars when they were 14. He’d looked her right in the face and lied through his teeth and to this day, Smurf didn’t know the truth of what happened. The only person he’d never really been able to lie to was Deran and that was only because Deran had made it his mission to know every inch of Adrian’s body and he knew what he looked like when he lied.

He wasn’t lying now.


End file.
